To Helvetica and Back (5 page)

It had taken him a while, but he'd built up a steady business full of people who actually
wanted
to learn Latin, or people who wanted their children to learn it. The road up from Salt Lake City had improved since Nicolai's time, but there were still snowy days to contend with. Anorkory's students didn't seem to mind. He might never be a millionaire, but he had a comfortable life that allowed for plenty of powder time in the winter, and a nice, big dance studio space to use as his classroom.

I'd never understood why anyone would want to learn Latin, but I was happy for Anorkory and his little gold mine too.

He was exiting through the ornate doorway as I spied out the window. Though it was summer in Star City, it only got uncomfortably hot a few days a year. And the mountain air cooled to sweater or light-jacket perfection almost every evening. No matter what the temperature was though, when he wasn't wearing his snow gear, Anorkory wore an old trench coat and a dramatic black scarf that made his hound-dog eyes look more artistic than sad.

He locked the door efficiently, his attention fully focused on each task he performed, which was something I'd come to expect from him, and took off down
the sidewalk in front of the diner. I waved when I thought he looked my direction, but he didn't return the greeting. He must not have seen me.

The rest of the businesses were quiet, their windows lit with only a little backlight to deter potential thieves, but the owners and employees had all gone home for the day. I'd become used to being the last one to leave Bygone Alley because I often worked late, and even though Chester was usually upstairs, it was rare that I'd check in with him before I left.

A shiver snuck up on me as an image of leather man came to my mind. Truly, what might he have done if Marion hadn't managed to call the police in time?

“Stop,” I said to myself. “All's well that ends well.”

Baskerville meowed down at me from his perch.

“You should come down here and keep me company while I finish the typewriter and
Tom Sawyer
,” I said to him.

He looked at me a long moment, seemed to shrug, and then softly jumped his way down.

Together, we went to the back and got to work.

“C
lare, wake up, honey.”

I jerked my body upright, but my fuzzy brain lagged behind. Once I realized where I was, I noticed that both of my arms tingled painfully and hung uselessly from my shoulders. I'd been asleep at the worktable, my arms up and my head on them.

“Hi, Chester,” I said and silently told my arms that the waves of pins-and-needles pain would pass soon enough.

“Late night?” he asked.

I blinked behind the glasses that I hadn't taken off and inspected him closely. Like me, he had on the same clothes he'd worn the day before.

“You too?” I asked.

He waved away my question and ran his fingers over the copy of
Tom Sawyer
on the side table.

“I looked at the page. You finished it beautifully, Clare. You are very gifted.”

“I learned from the best,” I said, trying to lift my arms, but they still hurt and were nonresponsive.

“Well, you surpassed my skills a long time ago, but I'm thrilled to be outshone.” Chester smiled. “No one bothered you last night?”

“No one at all.”

“Excellent. I took a gander in your office, to see what the cameras recorded. It looks like your computer is off. Turn it on later and let me know if there's anything to see.”

“What? The computer shouldn't be off, Chester. The monitor should be on. It's supposed to be on all the time now. Maybe it's just in sleep mode or whatever. The security system is an old setup, and it won't work if it's powered off.”

I scooted away from the table and stood. I hoped my arms didn't look too weird as I hurried to my office.

I gained back a little control and put my hand on the mouse, moving it, and then moving it more forcefully, but nothing came up on the screen.

“Shoot,” I said.

With Chester watching over my shoulder, I pushed the power button. The buzz of the hard drive seemed to need to pick up steam before it could actually fire up.

Finally, after what seemed like a bazillion seconds, the monitor came on, showing my screen saver, which was a picture of Jimmy and Marion making silly faces.

I moved the mouse again and then clicked on the security system icon, bringing a four-squared picture into view. We
only had three cameras, so only three pictures filled three squares. The fourth one remained black. The first picture came from right outside the front door. Though it was daylight, it was still early enough that there was no foot traffic yet to see. The second camera was placed on the wall behind the cash register, and I saw the empty but now lighted store in a fuzzy black-and-white picture.

I gave only a cursory glance at the third picture that displayed the back walkway before I clicked on the files-saved button. A few more frustrating clicks later, I was certain that the cameras hadn't recorded anything since only a few minutes after the police left the day before.

“Shoot,” I said again. “I have no idea why the computer turned itself off, Chester. It's been so long since I've kept it on at night, I must have programmed in something to make it shut down if it doesn't get used for a certain amount of time, but I can't remember doing that. I'll figure it out today and change whatever settings need changing.”

“That works. No harm done. You're fine. No one tried to break into the store. As you said yesterday, all's well that ends well.” Chester smiled, but I could see a small bit of worry behind his glasses at the corner of his eyes.

“I'll fix it,” I said as I clicked back to the live pictures.

Just as I was going to regroup and ask him again about his late night, my eyes landed on something unusual in the third picture, the one outside the back door.

The camera was aimed down the skinny walkway that was currently only barely lit from the rising sun. My eyes had somehow been drawn to the bottom right corner of the picture.

“Chester, does that look like shoes?” I pointed at two mostly shoe-shaped things in the corner.

“Maybe.” He leaned in closer to the screen. “Maybe.”

The black-and-white picture was less clear than the other two because of the lack of light and contrast. The walls, the windows, the ground, everything was crammed together with colors that were so similar that one item melted into the next.

“I think we'd better check it out,” I said as I pushed the chair back.

Chester followed close at my heels and Baskerville darted in front of us. I hadn't noticed him yet this morning, but he moved as if he knew what we were doing and led us directly to the back door.

Neither Chester nor I were cautious as we opened the door. I unlocked the locks, turned the knob, and yanked it open, propelling myself out of the doorway without even one small glance in either direction.

The shoes I thought I'd seen on the screen would have been to our left, probably about ten feet away.

“Uh-oh,” Chester said from directly behind me. He grabbed my arm and stepped around me, and with strength no seventy-seven-year-old man should have, pushed me back toward the door. But I didn't go back inside like he probably hoped I would. I followed directly behind him and Baskerville, who still trotted ahead, all the way to the shoes—well, boots actually—and sniffed curiously.

Chester crouched and put his fingers to the body's neck. “Nothing,” he said.

“That's leather man,” I gasped. Though he was on his
stomach, his neck was turned so that he faced sideways, and I recognized him, even with the piece of glass sticking out of his back He also still wore the leather he'd had on the day before. I crouched down and snapped my fingers, hoping Baskerville would come to me, but he didn't. Instead he moved to a spot right next to Chester.

“The man who came into the store yesterday?” Chester asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, he's dead now.” From his crouched position, Chester looked up and down the walkway.

There really wasn't much to see—a couple forgotten garbage cans, a broom. An old window frame leaned against the back of the post office. The glass had been broken out of it and made a puzzle-type pile on the ground around it. A piece of the window's glass had probably served as the murder weapon. There were lots of closed back doors and back windows, most of which had security grates over them. There was a general sense of old and grimy, abandoned but not filthy. At the far end, the walkway led to Main Street, and currently a slice of light shone from there. It seemed farther away than the five buildings between us, a long journey back to civilization even if it truly wasn't.

“Are you sure our cameras were out all night?” Chester said.

“One hundred percent positive,” I said as my knees began to shake again.

“Let's get inside, call the police,” Chester said as he stood, picking up Baskerville on the way.

•   •   •

Officer Creighton Wentworth operated differently than his sister, Jodie. They shared the same heavy walk, but for some reason Creighton's footfalls—even though he was six feet, five inches and two hundred thirty pounds of policeman buff—were less obnoxious than Jodie's. That was the only thing about him that was less obnoxious than his sister. He was big, overbearing, and awful, except that back when he and I had dated, I'd found him teddy bear adorable, both gentle and kind. When he cheated on me, those traits transformed. And when I wouldn't forgive him for cheating, he quit being so nice to me.

“Hang on a second, the officers didn't take the typewriter with them yesterday?” Creighton asked.

We'd already shown him the body and had had to listen to his exasperated questions as to why we'd run toward possible danger instead of immediately calling the police. Those questions had gone unanswered; even we didn't understand why we'd done what we'd done.

The body was now being attended to by Kelly, Creighton's partner and an even less-friendly person to be around. Kelly had become Creighton's partner about the same time of the breakup, so in all fairness I knew he'd only heard Creighton's version of events. It was understandable that he might think less of me, and I didn't much care.

Creighton and I were in the workshop. I was telling him what had happened the day before, the day I'd first met the live version of leather man.

“No,” I said. “The police didn't take the typewriter, but it got a thorough inspection.”

“Let me guess. My sister came out?”

“Your sister was thorough, Creighton. You know she's a good cop.”

“She's also your best friend and not the person who should have come out and investigated a potential crime.”

“So you should have been the one?” I said as I folded my arms in front of myself.

Creighton's brown eyes squinted briefly and the back of his cheek jumped as he gritted his teeth. “No, Clare, it should not have been me either. It should have been someone with no personal ties to you or your family, but apparently Jodie doesn't understand that rule. I'll be sure to tell her all about it.”

“I know you will.”

Creighton looked away as the line of his mouth went straight and hard. He looked back at me a moment later. “What else can you tell me? You said your security cameras didn't catch anything?”

“No, come to my office and I'll show you when they stopped working.”

Creighton followed me to the office. Baskerville was perched on the edge of the worktable, next to the No. 5. He didn't quite hiss as Creighton walked by, but he certainly sent him a dirty look.

“Stupid cat,” he muttered quietly.

Baskerville was far from stupid. Snotty and standoffish, but not stupid. I didn't bother to point this out to Creighton
though. I had done as much a time or two before. I'd save my sparring words for something else—I was sure he'd give me another reason to be irritated soon enough.

I sat in the chair and rolled it tightly up to the desk as Creighton moved behind me. He had to move in way too close to be able to see the screen properly. His chin was directly above my right shoulder and I squelched an urge to lean to the left.

“I'm pretty sure this time notation is correct,” I said as I pointed to the red neon-ish numbers and letters in the bottom right corner in the fourth square of the screen, “because that's right after Jodie and Omar left. And then, look, everything just goes black. I think I had it set to turn off, but I don't remember doing that. It's also an old computer. It could have done it on its own.”

“I see. Well, it was good that you tried to have something working at least.”

Now I did lean to the left and looked up at him over my right shoulder. I was able to inspect him from the farthest distance possible while still being seated. He was being complimentary and it sounded and looked sincere.

“Thanks,” I said warily. “I did walk to the front and look out of the windows at around eight o'clock. I saw Anorkory leave his place, but he didn't see me watching him. I didn't see or hear anything suspicious all night.”

“You were here all night?”

“I fell asleep at my table while I was working.”

“I wonder if Chester heard or saw anything.”

I shrugged. I wasn't going to be the one to tell Creighton
that Chester had been gone all night, at least as far as I knew. The two of them could discuss that little tidbit.

I hadn't allowed myself to dwell on the fact that someone had been killed behind the building while I'd been in the workshop. Their life had been taken from them as I either worked or slept, with one mere wall in between me and the awful deed.

“Well, nevertheless,” Creighton continued, “I'm pleased you have some sort of security system at all. Most businesses around here don't. Star City might be a quiet ski town, but we see crime, plenty of it. So good job to you and Chester.”

I twisted my neck and looked up at him again. It was an awkward position and the space was too small and we were too close. I rolled the chair back a little and expunged myself from the crowded pocket. I slipped past him and stood on the other side of the desk, placing my hands on my hips in a pose that didn't hide how uncomfortable I was.

“Well, thanks,” I said. “I'm glad we have something too, but we need something better.”

Creighton shrugged. “Probably.”

He took a few long-legged and authoritative steps out from behind the desk and led the way out of the office. I hesitated just long enough to keep the distance between us as far as might be considered acceptable. The back door to the building was open a crack since the crime scene people were still gathering evidence. He pulled it open wide and peered out.

“The body's gone,” he said to me after he closed the door again.

“Did they take him out through the walkway, not through the building?”

“Must have.”

I nodded.

“You can do whatever you need to do out there once everyone leaves. You won't disturb the crime scene. The techs won't go until they have everything.”

“I haven't opened that back door in probably a year or so. I can't see why we'd need to go out there at all. At this point I'd like to seal it off, maybe cement it closed.”

“Nope. Fire code won't allow that, but you can get some stronger locks and a security gate if you want.”

“I'll look into it.”

“Now, I'm taking this typewriter. I'll deal with Mirabelle if she doesn't like it,” Creighton said.

“What will you do with it?” I asked.

“I don't know. Give it to our crime scene people so they can look it over thoroughly. My sister's a knucklehead. She should have known better.”

We'd been doing so well. For a good few minutes, Creighton and I hadn't said anything to each other that could be considered grounds for a fight. It might have been a record. But the insult to his sister irritated me just enough that I decided not to tell him about the scratched writing on the key bars. Even if they proved to be some code for finding a killer, I was just stubborn enough to want Jodie to figure it out before Creighton had the chance.